the Christian position which
his friends hoped to get from him, and which he at one time hoped to
be able to give.

CHAPTER VII

THE APOSTLE OF UNION

The close of the period dealt with in the last chapter was made sadly
memorable to Cairns by the death of some of his closest friends. In
October 1858 died the venerable Dr. Brown, with whom, since he was a
student, he had stood in the closest relations, and whom he revered
and habitually addressed as a father. In November 1859 the bright
spirit of George Wilson, the dearest of all his friends, passed away;
and in the same year he had to mourn the loss of Miss Darling, the
correspondent and adviser of his student days. His brave old mother
died in the autumn of 1860, and in the following year he lost another
old and dear friend in Mrs. Balmer, the widow of his predecessor in
Golden Square, who perhaps knew him better than his own mother, and
had been deeper in his confidence than anyone since he came to
Berwick. From this period he became more reserved. With all his
frankness there was always a characteristic reticence about him, and
this was less frequently broken now that those to whom he had so
freely poured out his soul had been taken from him. But he drew closer
to those who were still left--especially to his own kindred, to his
sisters, to his brother William at Oldcambus, and to his brother
David, who had now been settled for some years as minister at
Stitchel, near Kelso.[14]

[Footnote 14: His eldest brother, Thomas, had died from the effects of
an accident in 1856.]

Dr. Brown had nominated him as one of his literary executors, and
his family were urgent in their request that he should write their
father's Life. With great reluctance he consented, and for eighteen
months this task absorbed the whole of his leisure, to the complete
exclusion of the work on "The Difficulties of Christianity," with
which he had already made some progress. The undertaking was a labour
of love, but it cannot be said to have been congenial. Memoir writing
was not to his taste, and in this case he had made a stipulation that
still further hampered him and made success very difficult. This was
that he should omit, as far as possible, all personal details, and
leave these to be dealt with in a separate chapter which Dr. Brown's
son John undertook to furnish. This chapter was not forthcoming when
the volume had to go to press, and was separately issued some months
later. W